In early times, however, Bodmin possessed a Priory, a Convent of Grey Friars, and several other religious structures, of which there are now but few remains. The _Priory_, which stood near the church, has gone entirely to decay, but a handsome modern house, called the Priory, erected on its site, is now the residence of Walter Raleigh Gilbert, Esq. This spot was first selected for religious retirement as early as the sixth century, by St. Guron and St. Petroc. It owed its origin to the circumstance of St. Petroc, its founder, having taken up his abode in a valley, now occupied by the town of Bodmin, but then the residence of St. Guron, a solitary recluse, who having resigned his hermitage to St. Petroc, it was by him enlarged for the residence of himself and three other devout men, who accompanied him with the intention of leading a monastic life according to the rules of St. Benedict. Here St. Petroc died before the middle of the sixth century. His shrine was preserved in a small chapel, attached to the east end of Bodmin church, as we learn from Leland and William of Worcester. The hermitage which he had founded, continued to be inhabited by monks of the Benedictine Order, till the reign of King Athelstan, who, in 926, founded, on or near the same spot, a priory of Benedictines: but this convent having been dissolved at an early period, and its possessions fallen into the hands of secular canons, Robert, Earl of Moreton and Cornwall seized them for his own use, and, after the death of his son William, Earl of Moreton and Cornwall, they became vested in the crown. Algar, to whom it is probable they had been granted, with the King’s license, and that of William Warlewast, Bishop of Exeter, re-founded the monastery, and replenished it with Austin Canons, who continued till the general dissolution of religious houses, when its revenues were valued at 270£. 0s. 11d. clear annual income. The Prior had, among other privileges, a market and fair, gallows, pillory, &c. as proved in a _quo warranto_, in the reign of King Edward I. The site, with the demesnes, was granted to Thomas Sternhold, one of the first English translators of the Psalms.—Various relics of antiquity have been found at different times on this consecrated spot; among which were some columns with ornamented mouldings and a mutilated effigy of a skeleton, finely executed, which has been placed against a gateway in the garden belonging to the Priory House.